This invention is directed to materials handling techniques for the apparel industry, and more particularly to improvements in the manner in which flimsy fabric pieces, such as apparel pockets after once being separated, are stored according to a prescribed sequence, transported, and/or presented to subsequent sewing operations in the forming of apparel products.
During the manufacture of apparel such as trousers, shirts, jackets, sleepwear, and the like, it is conventional practice in the apparel industry to first cut individual parts or components of the garment from a pattern and later sew the parts together to form the completed garment. Such parts include pockets, collars, and other components. Cut fabric pieces are then arranged in stacks, stored, and then transported to the next operation which may be sewing, embroidery, inspection, or the like. Sometimes components such as pockets and collars have fancy stitching, labels, or designs sewed, embroidered, or otherwise affixed thereto prior to the time they are assembled and attached to the next generation assembly.
During such processing it is presently the accepted practice for fabric pieces to be manually separated from a stack of like pieces and at each work station presented to a sewing head, attached to an embroidery frame, presented to a pants leg or other garment part, or otherwise further processed. Such manual handling is recognized to be expensive and laborious. Secondly, where the pieces are subjected to intermediate sewing, embroidery, or other operations, multiple handlings thereof are required. In addition to the expense of manual handling it is very difficult, and often impossible, to maintain the pieces in a prescribed sequence which is very important in modern cut and sew operations as dye lots vary.
For example, in a typical cut and sew operation many stacks of fabric (up to 100) are laid out on a cutting table, then the different parts of the garment are cut. It is recognized practice that a single garment should, if at all possible, come from the same fabric fold to ensure consistency of color throughout the garment. When the individual parts are separated for further processing and the assembly operation in preparation for sewing, it is necessary to reassemble the same parts from the same fabric fold back together at the assembly point. Thus, one can easily see the advantages of being able to maintain fabric pieces in a prescribed sequence.
Further, considerable time is lost in manually selecting and positioning a flimsy fabric piece for subsequent sewing operation. Because of the lack of rigidity of the fabric panel, automatic handling equipment has not been developed to accurately position the fabric merely by picking up and moving the fabric itself. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide some type of rigid locating edge, hole, or corner arrangement for each fabric piece to ensure proper registration thereof in subsequent assembly operations.
Previously fabric pieces were manually separated because of a lack of automated equipment for reliably removing one panel at a time from a stack of fabric pieces. However, recently a highly reliable fabric ply separator has been developed which makes the automated maintaining of fabric plies as separate items both feasible and desirable. The aforesaid fabric ply separator is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 933,469 filed Nov. 21, 1986.